A veteran

​When the tanks came, ​
in the winter of ‘89 to Bucharest,
protest meant going to the wrong
place to pick up your milk

for days, the blue metal plates
that named the streets, had been taken out
to be exiled from their shady corners,
and ended up somewhere else,

a higher order between
what the thing is and what
the thing it is called
disappeared. First confusion... 

then silence. Nothing,
no sign, no event
in language, that will

tame the savage cells,
that will take the word,
to its rightful place.

He is coughing. He speaks
his shame, he mangles his words.
He thinks I’m someone else,
​
that’s how we live now,
the world in complete
and utter order.

Published in Ambit 225